The Metamorphosis of Halloween
Wendy and I had only been in our new
home for a month when Halloween arrived. We were both hoping for a
lot of children, so we spent some time filling sixty bags with "penny
candy" – suckers, pixie sticks, sweet-tarts, and gum, plus a
Halloween themed plastic ring. The candies were placed in a cauldron
shaped bucket next to the door so that we could grab them easily as
kids arrived.
The main door was open so we could see
the children as they approached. This worked well for the neighbor
children and the babies that were out before sunset. Once the sun
went down, I took on a different tactic. I decided to pull put an old
Halloween mask that I had – it fit over your head and came with
armor over the shoulder. The face was sunken, and the lips were
threaded with twine. I was pretty scary looking and I thought that
this would do the trick on some of the older trick-or-treaters. We
accentuated the haunted house by shutting off all of the lights
inside the house except for the porch light and the interior light
behind the front door.
I heard the doorbell ring and I looked
out the peephole. There were three kids and two adults. I grabbed
five candy bags and slowly opened the door, saying in the deepest
Sam-Elliott voice that I had, "Happy Halloween!!!" The
adults were taken aback and the kids got wide-eyed – just the
effect I wanted. I then said in a normal voice, "I suppose you
want some candy..." They nodded and I handed the bags to the
parents and one into each child's bag. This continued and I mastered
my "scare" over the next five or six groups of kids.
Then another group came. I didn't look
out – I just grabbed four bags of candy. As I was billowing "Happy
Halloween," I heard the shriek of a very young girl who was
dashing away from the front door and across my front lawn, dropping
candy and bits of her costume as she ran. Her dad was in the driveway
and he exclaimed, "Man, that's a good one!" I apologized
profusely to him and I took off the mask and started picking up the
bits that the little girl dropped during her escape. I was mortified.
I took off the mask for the evening and sat on the porch, handing out
candy bags until we ran out. I vowed that night that I would not
"scare" on Halloween again.
Fast forward about ten years – Wendy
and I are sitting on the porch handing out our 120 bags of candy to
the kids. Two small kids approach with a taller teen girl, the dad
was standing in the driveway. We handed each of the children a bag of
candy and the teen girl asked us, "do you know who I am?"
She wasn't in a costume, so I was perplexed by the question. "Do
I know you," I asked. Then the girl relayed that she was the
little girl that I scared that night. I told her that I have never
scared anyone since and that I was very sorry and that she could have
all of our candies if she wanted. She said that since being scared by
me that she had purposefully skipped our home on Halloween, but that
she felt old enough and brave enough to come up this time. We gave
her hugs and candy, and shook her dad's hand, and met her mom as
well.
I could add a witty moral to this
story, but I'll put it another way: because of my selfishness, a
child was afraid of me and our house. Sometimes, as an adult, we
don't perceive the power that we can wield, especially the power we
can wield over children. I grew up a lot on that Halloween.
